


Grit Your Teeth

by Griselda_Howl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Also Murphy says some offensive things, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dyslexia, Hinted Alcoholism, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Mild D/s, Murphamy - Freeform, Murphy doesn't understand intimacy, Rough Sex, Self-Destructive Behavior, Sort Of, a little smut, actually a good bit of angst too, almost breath play, bad home first aid, but happy ending, but no direct self-harm or suicidal ideation, do not try this at home, everyone is in their 20's, looooots of fluff, one gay slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 16:39:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griselda_Howl/pseuds/Griselda_Howl
Summary: Murphy doesn’t need a lot. He’s doing fine. He has a job, a home, and can even afford to drink some shitty coffee a few times a week. But then a certain young woman barges her way into his life, sets him up with a certain handsome man, and everything goes to shit.This ended up having more angst in it than I originally intended, but there's obnoxious fluff in it, too. :)





	Grit Your Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: There’s a mildly graphic description of home first-aid that I URGE you to not do yourself. I have zero medical training, and I’m sure the scene is inaccurate and the characters definitely should have gone to a hospital. If you want to skip that part, it starts at “Clarke had very soft hands…” and ends by “Clarke leaned back against the wall.” Or, if you REALLY don’t want to know what the procedure was, skip a little further down to “Clarke leaned forward.” (She does a lot of leaning, doesn’t she?)
> 
> Please heed the tags regarding sexual content. There’s a little mediocre smut in here that you can pretty easily skip if you want.
> 
> Last note, I swear: I don't have dyslexia myself, and I know that people's experiences with it vary dramatically. The case described here is 100% fictional and not intended to be a faithful representation of any specific case. There isn't a ton of explicit discussion of it, but thought I'd mention just in case. I hope it doesn't offend anyone!
> 
> Thanks for reading. :)

It was a dreary October day, just like Murphy liked it. An overcast sky that spread a grey-blue filter on everything, the air just chilly enough for a jacket, and thick clouds passive-aggressively hinting at rain. A perfect day for him to clomp his way down the broken sidewalk in his tattered shoes to Jim Thornton’s, his favorite subpar haunt.

A gust of wind whipped sideways through his maybe a little too-long hair. He wrinkled his nose—his stupid, acute nose—at his own scent; no matter how carefully he showered, he always smelled at least faintly of some rather unsavory items found at the Waste/Recycling Center where he worked. He’d found heavily scented soaps just made it even worse, so he settled for trying to mute his garbage dump cologne with plain Dial. Good thing he didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought, or smelled for that matter.

A passing cyclist nodded to him. He was feeling uncharacteristically generous, so he nodded back, face blank. Which was downright cheerful on the Murphy scale. The Murphy scale, a subset of his beloved law, a law that he’d love to break, but happiness wasn’t as easy as shoplifting.

His feet lead him up to the front door of Jim’s, and he frowned at how cold the handle was against his thin fingers. He’d need to find some gloves soon. The poor sap working the counter dropped his sad excuse of a customer service smile as soon as his eyes landed on Murphy. He turned and filled up a large paper cup with plain, black house blend as the boy counted out the change. The exchange was wordless, the teen employee handing him the cup, Murphy handing him the bills and coins. He didn’t bother nodding like he had with the cyclist. Each of them knew the deal here.

The interior of the coffee joint—it couldn’t be called a shop with its primary customers circulating the drive-through—was small, cramped even, but there was one tiny part of the building that formed a compact nook by the bathroom. That was Murphy’s table. He smirked to himself. Fitting spot for a little shit such as himself.

Cars came and went, but he was the only one lingering inside other than the unfortunate souls trapped behind the counter. There was always at least one fly scouring the windowpanes futilely and one sneaking about in the pastry display. The tables were perpetually sticky in certain spots. It was perfect. Murphy occasionally needed a slight variation of his routine of work, empty apartment, work. One shithole to another, and that suited him just fine as long as he could get a little variety now and then. He’d just pulled out his book and burnt his tongue on his coffee when he saw a young blonde stroll into the building.

“Hi!” She greeted the kid at the register with a smile. “Do you have any fresh dark roast?”

Murphy snorted a short laugh at his little table. _Fresh_ would be pushing it.

“What size?” the kid asked in monotone.

“Um…” Oh, this was a treat. The girl was obviously regretting her decision 30 seconds into it. “Small?”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Black is fine. And… um, could I get a danish?”

The boy tapped out her order in the register, scooted the card reader toward her, and turned to fill up her cup. Murphy was getting more enjoyment than any decent person should out of watching her squirm awkwardly. He ducked his head down toward his book when the worker started pulling out the pastry; his little vampire eyes definitely enjoyed the blonde’s disappointment, but he didn’t fancy risking pissing her off and sparking an angry encounter.

“Thank you,” she said genuinely. There was no verbal response, so Murphy imagined the guy had just nodded or something.

He glanced up from beneath his eyelashes as discreetly as he could. Her clothes were nice, stylish, and she wore some sort of dark green flowy top underneath a sleek black coat, dark blue skinny jeans, and a brown messenger bag over one shoulder. She looked young and sported tasteful, natural makeup. Probably a college kid who thought this would be some little hipster haven.

And then she spotted him. He turned his eyes back down quickly, but to his surprise and mild irritation, he heard her walking toward his little den. “Hi. Mind if I sit with you?”

Murphy was starting to think this girl might not have a sense for danger. Murphy, grungy man-child sitting at a grungy table, was not the kind of company a person like her should keep. But he just shrugged. Know what, why not? It would be interesting, if nothing else. And he really did thrive off of sucking joy from people.

The brown plastic chair groaned as it scraped across the floor. The girl set her coffee down before settling in herself and rummaging in her bag. “I’m Clarke Griffin,” she offered with a smile.

He blinked. “Okay.”

Apparently that was a funny thing to say. “This is the part where you tell me your name,” she giggled.

“John Murphy. Resident asshole. You probably shouldn’t sit here.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the resident asshole.” He felt his lips twitch at the corners.

“I bet you’re a nice guy,” she insisted. Her delicate fingers placed a sketchbook and a tin of graphite pencils on the table. _Oh, how inspired. An artist._

“You’d be wrong.”

She was persistent, if nothing else. “What are you reading?”

Time to crank up the creep meter. “The facial expression of someone who doesn’t realize yet that they’ve made a big mistake.”

She laughed. Laughed. What the hell? “Listen, you don’t scare me. My friend told me this was a cool place to hang out, and I want to make the best of it. Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Murphy decided not to answer that question. “Your friend pranked you. Place is a dump.”

“I wouldn’t say dump…”

“Have you tried the coffee yet?”

She glanced at her cup. Steam still rose from the lip of it. “Probably still too hot.”

“No, no, that’s perfect. That’s the trick. You burn your tongue on it so that you don’t taste how bad it is after.”

She smirked. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.” She lifted the cup to her lips and blew softly into the hole.

“I expect a full review.”

“I’ll be sure to deliver.”

Murphy wondered if she was going to press him about the book again, but she didn’t. Clarke turned her attention to her supplies, snapping off the lid to the tin and thumbing to an open page in her sketch book. She turned the pages too fast for him to get a good look at any of her drawings, but the glimpses he caught actually looked pretty decent.

“It’s rude to look at someone’s art without asking, you know,” she chided, but her tone was friendly.

“Yeah, well, it’s a small table.”

She met his eyes and smiled. “Do you mind if I draw you?”

Now that, Murphy was not expecting. “I think you’re confused. I’m the creepy one, here. You’re the well-adjusted young adult.”

“How do you know? Shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” She slipped a pencil between her fingers and let her blue eyes glide over his face before turning to the blank page in front of her. Apparently she was going to do it whether he approved or not.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re pushy?”

“Yep,” she said with a grin. The pencil swept across the paper establishing gesture lines, and she glanced up at his face every few seconds.

“I’m not gonna hold still for you.”

“That’s fine. Just do what you normally do.”

He rolled his eyes. “Normally I don’t have a stranger staring at my face.”

“Pretend I’m not here.”

Murphy smirked. “That one I can do.” Or, he could profess to anyway. Ignoring people was usually a talent of his, but this was a bit of an odd circumstance. He tried to get comfortable (as comfortable as one can get in a hard plastic chair) as he re-opened his book. They sat in relative silence, each to their own task, Clarke scratching her pencils against her beloved dead tree guts, Murphy puzzling out words slowly and trying to appear like he wasn’t. In the background, the humdrum life of Jim’s dragged along.

And then Clarke finally took a sip of her coffee. The look on her face was priceless. She obviously didn’t like it but was trying very hard to appear interested. “Told you you should have burned your tongue.”

“It’s not that bad,” she muttered unconvincingly.

“Whatever you say, princess.” He refocused on his book.

Instead of commenting on the nickname, she tilted her head, able to read the title of his paperback at the angle he held it. “Folktales, huh?” Clarke asked while she continued sketching.

“Yep. All about thieves and folly.”

“Interesting.”

“Yep,” he said blandly.

This time their conversational lull lasted longer. Murphy made it through two pages, so that meant about ten minutes had passed. He was surprised to find that he was actually enjoying this. The scratching of Clarke’s pencils was a soothing percussion line to the usual noise of the ‘shop,’ and he was almost disappointed when she leaned back with a large, satisfied sigh.

“It’s just a quick one, so it isn’t refined at all, but wanna see?”

He looked up to find her holding the sketchbook out to him. He almost didn’t want to touch it, knowing his hands, even if they were clean at the moment, had touched things this girl had probably never touched in her life, but then he remembered that he didn’t give a fuck about manners. In the lines and smudges of graphite, his face looked softer than it actually was.

“It’s nice,” he surprised himself by saying. “Looks nothing like me, but it ain’t half bad, princess.”

Clarke was openly glaring at the coffee cup now. “Are there…” she pulled off the lid. “Are there grounds in the bottom?”

Murphy passed the sketchbook back and grinned widely. “Of course. They’re good for you. Gets some nice grit in your teeth.” He took a swig of the dregs of his own cup and flashed Clarke a smile speckled with coffee detritus. This had been fun, but surely he’d chase her away by the end of the encounter.

Usually that was met with disgust, but Clarke laughed. “I’ll take your word on that.”

“Suit yourself. Stick with a Starbuck’s next time.”

She flipped to a new page in the book. “The people are much more interesting here, though. Do you come here often?”

Murphy’s mouth fell open. “Are you trying to pick me up? Here?”

“Okay, yeah, I see how that sounded now that I said it out loud. Sorry,” she said breathlessly, rubbing her neck, very obviously embarrassed. “Not trying to pick you up. I’m gay, actually.”

“Well, hey, what do you know? Maybe I’m just an extremely ugly girl,” he teased. He enjoyed seeing her uncomfortable. And if he were into women, he’s sure he would have enjoyed the light blush on her cheeks.

She smiled at him. “You’re not ugly, John.”

“Ugh,” he winced at the sound of his first name. Why had he told her that? “It’s Murphy. No one calls me by my first name.”

“Well, Murphy, you’re not ugly.”

He raised an unruly eyebrow. “You sure you’re not hitting on me?”

“Yeah, seriously. Listen, I’m new here, and I need friends.”

Murphy laughed, rather obnoxiously. “Wow, you’d be better off trying to pick me up. Also gay, by the way.”

“Well there you go,” she said, knocking his arm with the back of her knuckles as if they were already friends. “Us queer folks have to stick together.”

“Seriously, I’m bad news. Got out of prison this past spring.” Murphy enjoyed messing with people, but he didn’t want to actually drag anyone down. This girl was obviously a Good Kid.

She just smiled and said “Congratulations. I did a brief stint in Juvie once.”

He rolled his eyes. “You? You’re not fooling anyone, princess.”

“No, really. I did. But I need to get to class.”

There it was. She had to go to class because between them there was a yawning class divide that Murphy was never going to cross, and that would be the end of the longest interpersonal interaction he’d had in months. “Off you go, then,” he muttered with a casual wave.

“Can we trade numbers? So I can draw you again and you can pretend you don’t like me?”

He scoffed. “What the hell makes you think I like you?”

“You don’t seem like the type to waste time talking to someone if you don’t like them at least a little.”

There was certainly truth to that. But Murphy wasn’t going to acknowledge it; he was just bored. Even Heathcliff had to talk to someone sometime, right? “If you really insist on making a date with a chump like me, fine,” he grunted as he pulled out his phone.

“It’s not a date,” she said gently, taking the proffered phone—a worn, black flip model that the 2000’s might want back soon—and tapping contact information into the old-school keypad.

“Just an expression. Like I said, gay. Like, shitting rainbows gay.”

She laughed again and handed him her phone—a rather shiny educated rectangle, more than Murphy could afford even if he saved for months. But she actually had a pretty nice laugh. Oh, Murphy, what’s going to become of you?

“I’m known to pass some rainbows, too.” Her eyebrows shot up when she saw the contact name he’d entered. “Trash King Murphy?”

“That’s what they call me.” Well, one person called him that. A heavy-set, middle-aged man at work who found Murphy’s abrasive attitude the funniest thing in the world.

Once she had her bag slung over her shoulder, she gave him a dramatic curtsy. “Farewell, then, my king, until we hang out again.”

He nodded. Damn, was he just giving those out today? “Later, princess.”

And then she was out the door, and not a second later, the clouds appeared to have decided their sticky notes weren’t doing the trick, and it started pouring. He smiled and tucked his book into the inner pocket of his oversized jacket. He could always use additional showers.

 

*-*-*-*

 

They’d been texting occasionally for a week, and the next time they hung out (or really the first time, since their initial meeting wasn’t planned), Clarke insisted they go somewhere with better coffee. Murphy insisted it not be Starbucks and be as low on the trendy scale as such an establishment might offer, so they settled on a place called Gloria’s, which was also a chain but definitely several steps up from Jim’s. He took his rickety old bike since it was a little beyond walking distance and he’d declined a ride from Clarke (she had to learn from someone what actions would constitute getting herself into accidental dates).

Clarke was already inside seated at a nice square table, one that appeared to be made of actual wood and didn’t look the least bit sticky. The average person wouldn’t have called the place upscale, but Murphy already felt like he was leaving stains where he walked on the hardwood floor. When he approached the counter, the lovely young barista gave him a high-watt smile, but not before he noticed the way she looked him up and down once. He knew he was obvious, but getting The Look was never fun.

“House, black,” he grunted before the woman could properly greet him.

Her eyebrows creased, but she nobly kept her smile in place. “Coming right up!”

Murphy stuffed his hands in his pockets, rattling the loose coins in his left one while he waited. He turned to see Clarke waving at him like a huge dork. He acknowledged her by rolling his eyes.

“Here you go! That’ll be $2.50.”

Murphy pulled out a tiny wad of crumpled ones and dirty quarters and grudgingly parted with them. Bit pricey for dripped bean water, but what did he expect?

“See?” Clarke started when he slunk over to her table. “Isn’t this nice?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Still probably the stables to a princess.”

She frowned. “Do you think I’m rich or something?”

“You’re a college student, aren’t you?”

Clarke nodded like she didn’t quite see where he was going with that. “Isn’t the trope the starving college student, though?”

“Yeah, but I don’t see the majority of kids paying their own way these days. All the ramen crap is laziness. So yes, I think you’re rich.”

“Well, Trash King, believe it or not, I am paying my own way. Scholarships and a job. My mom lives very comfortably, but she’s cut me off.”

“Ah, an _exiled_ princess,” he said with a smile, leaning forward and propping his chin on one hand. “So what’d you do?”

“Ousted some corrupt high school staff.”

“They don’t really put kids in jail for that.”

“They do when you do it by inciting violence.”

He shook his head. “You? Violent? I don’t believe that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m no badass. But I am manipulative. I cajoled a few friends into it.”

“Alright, that one I’ll believe for now.”

Clarke closed her sketchbook. “So what are you punishing yourself for?”

“‘Scuse me?” His eyebrows shot up.

“You put yourself down, try to push people away, and hang out alone at Jim’s. Why?”

He rolled his eyes. He was probably going to need glasses after all the eye strain if he kept spending time with her. “You don’t even know me. And going to coffee shops is hardly punishing myself. Pretty privileged, actually.”

“You said yourself that Jim’s doesn’t count as a coffee shop.”

“Still. Got clothes on my back and I’m not starving.”

“I kind of wonder about that.”

He grinned. “Been checking me out, have you?”

“Yeah, just gonna move right past that,” she said with an eyeroll of her own. “Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I like being alone. It was going great before you ruined it.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“It is. I’m a misanthrope. What do you want me to do, talk about my feelings?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I want.”

“Well, thanks but no thanks, Dr. Clarke.”

“Not a doctor yet, but working on it. Pre-med.”

Not primarily an artist, then. Color him surprised. “Great, Baby Doc in the house. Seriously, trying to get personal info on a guy’s inner trappings on the second date? Maybe you need to be told you’re pushy more often.”

“Murphy, so help me god, these aren’t dates. I do think my friend would like you, though,” she mused.

He raised an eyebrow. “They want an autograph?”

“No, Mr. Arrogant. But I do think you’re his type.”

“How lucky for me. Is he a garbage bag?”

Clarke laughed. “No, he’s quite a handsome guy.”

“Why are you trying to play matchmaker anyway?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

She shrugged and gave him a lopsided smile. “It’s just my thing. And he’s lonely, and you’re lonely, and you’re both my friends, so let’s get this ship in the water.”

“I’m not lonely.”

“You sure about that?”

Privately, Murphy knew that he was not at all sure about that. He really was a misanthrope, but… a small, disgusting part of him was lacking human connection. And getting laid would be really nice. “Quite sure, princess, but I wouldn’t say no to a leg over.”

“How romantic. Trust me, you’ll want to date him. He’s hella charming.”

“Well then, bring him with you next time. And tell me first so I can doll myself up.” He knew there really wasn’t a whole lot he could do in that department, but every little bit counts, right?

 

*-*-*-*

 

“Bellamy Blake,” the man’s deep voice hummed out as he extended his hand. And Murphy actually shook it. Clarke was right. He was handsome. He wore a pair of dark jeans and a snug black sweater, and actually, as Murphy continued to stare, he decided he was fucking _tall_ , _dark_ , _and handsome_ with his curly black hair and sun kissed skin. Were those freckles?

He cleared his throat awkwardly. Oh. Murphy was still holding onto his hand. Oops. “Sorry. Murphy. But Clarke told you that, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. Unlike Clarke, her friend did not appear to be adapting to Murphy’s unconventional behavior as easily as she had.

“Where is she, by the way?”

“In class,” he said, like it was obvious. “She has a full schedule on Tuesdays.”

“That little witch,” he murmured under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Table?”

The man nodded and followed Murphy to a spot in the corner. He felt exposed enough as it was, so some walls were a good idea. They settled in, and Murphy decided that even if he really wanted to get laid, he should probably still be himself; the guy would just be more surprised in bed otherwise. “What kind of name is Bellamy?” he asked bluntly.

“An English one, I think, gift from my mother. What kind of name is Murphy?”

“Irish. Looks like we can’t be friends, Brit,” he said with a smirk.

“Well, I’m not actually English. I’m was born in Australia, raised in the U.S.”

“Ah, the prison colony. Maybe that’s why Clarke thought we’d make a good match.”

“She thinks we’d be a… good match?” he asked quietly. Seriously? He looked genuinely surprised.

“Yeah. She didn’t tell you her plot? I’m sure she also set this up on a Tuesday so it’d be more like a date.”

Bellamy blushed—and, now that, that was a sight Murphy could really appreciate—and the man suddenly became very interested in the hem of his stupidly attractive sweater's sleeve. “She did not.”

“Well, cat’s out of the bag. For some reason she thought you’d like my ugly mug and my shitty sense of humor.”

His eyes—dark and lovely—darted up to meet Murphy’s. “You’re not ugly at all.”

“That’s what Clarke said. Appears you both need your eyes checked.”

He shook his head. “No, you need to look in a mirror. You’re hot.”

“Oh?” Murphy grinned, wide. “And here I thought you’d be the type to get to know a guy first before charming him into bed.”

There it was again, that gorgeous, faint blush that dusted over what were indeed some adorable freckles. “Sorry, that was… forward of me.”

“Oh my god,” Murphy laughed. “I was kidding. Listen, I don’t move slow. If you really don’t mind my face, wanna do it?”

Bellamy gaped at him. “We haven’t even gotten coffee yet. Are you serious?”

“As Grumpy Cat in rigor mortis.”

He seemed to consider this a moment—the proposition, not the cat, judging from the look on his face—his fingers tensing over each other. “Your place or mine?”

Murphy positively beamed. This was his lucky day. He’d never secured a pick up so easily outside a seedy bar. “Yours. Definitely yours.”

 

*-*-*-*

 

As soon as Bellamy managed to turn the key in his lock, Murphy slammed him against the door. He craned his neck and pressed his lips to the other man’s hungrily, tugging at his skin and teasing with tongue. “Damn,” Bellamy gasped. A second later, Murphy’s chest was pressed up against his and his hands were snaking their way to his waist. “You weren’t kidding about not moving slowly.”

He flashed him a grin. “Nope.” And then dropped to his knees. His pants tightened more at the very satisfying groan this elicited in Bellamy.

“Oh my god.”

“Please, call me Murphy,” he snarked as he unzipped him.

“ _Murphy_ ,” the man obliged, and shit, his cock hadn’t been this attentive in weeks.

He wasted no time tugging down Bellamy’s jeans and boxers. Unsurprisingly, he had a beautiful dick to match the rest of him. He nosed along the length of it and started licking the hot skin. After he’d wrapped one hand around him and started pumping slowly, he noticed Bellamy’s hands clenched tightly at his sides.

“You can grab my head if you want. I like it rough.”

Bellamy eagerly slid one hand through his dark brown hair. No one had touched his hair in a long time, and he seriously had a thing for it, and it felt heavenly. Murphy responded by sucking the tip of his cock into his mouth and twisting his head around it. He popped off a moment later. “Seriously. You can face fuck me if you want.” And by that, Murphy actually meant please.

A choked noise left Bellamy’s throat. “Safe word?”

He snorted. “Not very helpful with your cock down my throat. I’ll tap your leg if I need air.” He dove down again and pulled him in deeper this time. “Give me a sec to work up to it,” he said when he let Bellamy slip out of his lips again.

Bellamy’s palm was feather light on his head as Murphy took him in more and more. The man above him didn’t push, but his fingers tightened in his hair, and Murphy rushed to remind his throat how to welcome a visitor. Once he made it all the way down to where his erection curved into his pelvis, he squeezed Bellamy’s leg with one hand and pushed on the man’s hand resting on the back of his head with the other.

Bellamy got the picture and started moving his hips, slowly at first, the pressure on his head still fairly light. Murphy tried to let a growl rumble out of his throat, but that was a bit difficult with his mouth full. The man seemed to appreciate the vibration, and he followed it with hard swirls of his tongue. And then Murphy reached around and slapped his ass like he was a horse he wanted to get moving.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, head falling back to bang against the door. Finally, the movements of his hips transformed into thrusts that grew harsher and harsher, and his other hand came up, both of them moving into place to grip the sides of his head and push and pull, push and pull.

And Murphy fucking loved it. He couldn’t resist ripping open his jeans, sticking his hand down his boxers, and jerking himself hard and fast. Bellamy’s cock was delving down into his throat now, and he focused on trying to constrict around it. He wished he could somehow sign to Bellamy to wrap one of his hands around his neck and squeeze.

“Oh my god, oh my god, Murphy, I’m close.” _Yes_. Fast and dirty, so much yes. “Is that okay? Can I come in your mouth?”

He hummed happily in response and redoubled the efforts of his tongue on the underside of his cock. His own hand tugged harder between his legs since he knew they were approaching the finale. He absolutely loved this, feeling like his body was being used, and Bellamy was doing it so right, hard but not brutal, and the orgasm that rippled through his body came faster than he thought it would.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” Bellamy cried, and seconds later Murphy felt his hot come jet into his mouth, making him choke and sputter in his attempt to swallow it. But he was a trooper. Bellamy’s arms had fallen limply at his sides, and Murphy made sure to glide his mouth over his cock gently to soothe him through it.

Once Bellamy’s breathing started evening out, he pulled off and wiped his mouth. He looked up at him and met his eyes. “Good?”

Bellamy’s jaw still hung open, and his lips looked red, like he’d been biting them. “Yeah,” he said a little breathlessly. “Do you want to…” He looked down and noticed the wet stain on Murphy’s underwear. “Oh.”

He laughed. “Sorry. Kind of enjoyed myself, you know? But if you give me a couple minutes, I’m down for round two.”

Bellamy reached out his hand to help the boy to his feet. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Drama queen,” Murphy muttered with a playful shove of his shoulder. “Bed?”

“Um, actually…”

Huh. He hadn’t expected to get kicked out this fast. Did he overstep somehow?

“Do you want to maybe watch a movie or something?”

Oh. “Oh. Yeah, sure.” Murphy smiled. And remembered that Clarke was trying to set him up to _date_ this guy, not just hook up once, so he should probably at least try to be good company. “Sounds nice.”

The way Bellamy looked at him and ran one of his hands through his hair, straightening it, was so worth accepting the invitation. Then he actually led Murphy to the couch by grabbing one of his hands and asked “What kind of movies do you like?”

He curled his fingers into Bellamy’s easily as they settled on his couch. Until now, he hadn’t really looked at the apartment at all, but it was nice. Lived in, but the guy obviously bought his furniture new and cleaned up after himself. There was no way they could end up together. Murphy was a force of entropy, and no doubt his presence would wilt this guy’s wallpaper (though he had quit smoking recently—but, also, who even had wallpaper anymore?), muddy the soft carpet, and scatter the neat piles of books and papers to the wind. “Murphy?”

“What? Oh, right. Movies. Um. I like horror and comedy, I guess.”

Bellamy nodded and turned on the TV. It was a spiffy smart TV that played Netflix. Murphy was really out of his league here. “Shaun of the Dead?”

He grinned. “Sounds smashing.”

Once the man started the movie, he leaned back toward one arm of the couch and made room between his legs for Murphy to nestle in. It took a moment to get situated, but after the two of them slotted together, his head on Bellamy’s chest, Bellamy’s warm arms wrapped around him, it was absolutely wonderful. “Mm,” he hummed and nuzzled his nose into the man’s soft sweater. “You even smell nice.”

“Thanks. So do you.”

Murphy laughed, probably unattractively. “It’s okay, I know I probably don’t. I kind of work at a dump. Well, waste/recycling plant, but, you know.”

“Really?” He carded one hand through his hair again. “I wouldn’t have guessed. You smell clean to me.”

“I did put a lot of effort into it. Did Clarke not tell you anything about me?”

Bellamy’s hand kept sweeping through his hair, tucking it behind his ear just to tug it free again. “Not really. She said you were interesting and that I should meet you. Said you study folklore.”

Murphy snorted. ‘Study’ was quite a stretch. “I read a little. Hey, you’ve seen this before, right?”

“Yeah. You want to watch something else?”

“No, I like it. Just wanted to find out if I should shut up.”

“Please don’t. I like your voice.”

Boy, this dude oozed sugar. “Aw. You are romantic.”

“Did Clarke say I was? Wait, what did she tell you about me?”

Murphy trailed his fingers lightly over the other man’s arm. “That you were a big, strong, sexy beast.”

He laughed. “She did not.”

“Well, she said you were handsome. Same thing. In your case, anyway.” Murphy usually might not be so talkative, but he felt rather like a cat at the moment and was quite inclined to do whatever was necessary to keep Bellamy petting him.

“She tell you what I’m studying?”

“Nope.”

“Classics. I teach one of the intro classes.”

“Wait,” Murphy turned so he could look at Bellamy’s face. “You’re a big shot professor, not just a student?”

He smirked. “Hardly a big shot. Just working on my master’s.”

“No shit? Wow.” Yep, way, way out of his league. What did Clarke think Bellamy would possibly want with him? He felt pretty confident at that point that he wouldn’t get a repeat of this, so he decided he needed to make the best of it. He scooted up so that he could kiss him, soft and leisurely this time, but with no less heat. Bellamy’s hand moved from his hair down to his neck, and the other one came up to smooth its way up and down his back.

“Murphy,” he mumbled. “Not that I’m not enjoying this, but I actually usually do go slowly.”

“Oh.” Embarrassing.

“But it’s okay that you don’t! I just… I don’t know, wanted you to know I’m not trying to use you? I’ve literally never had sex with someone that fast after meeting them before, and to be honest, I’m kind of scared I screwed this up.”

Murphy’s eyes went wide. “You? Screw this up?” Wasn’t it too soon to say there even was a ‘this’? “Haha, no, it’ll definitely be me who does that. But… if you want slow, I can try that, I guess. S’posed to be good for you to try new things, right?”

He looked so relieved that it was kind of cute. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Guess it’s my turn, then. Okay, professor, teach me what slow is like,” he said with a smirk. And then he realized Bellamy’s breathing hitched for a fraction of a second. “Ohh, what’s this? Somebody have a teacher-student kink? You like me calling you professor?”

“Damn it, Murphy,” he grumbled, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m trying very hard to be a gentleman, you know.”

Murphy, little shit that he was, arched his back so that his ass rubbed against the man’s crotch. “Nothing says you can’t be gentlemanly _and_ fuck me on the couch at the same time.”

“Oh my god,” he laughed. “Come on, let’s make it through the movie before anyone does any more debauching.”

“If you insist.” Murphy settled back to the position he was in before, which meant he was pressed up against Bellamy’s body, but not quite as closely. He could still feel how he was half-hard underneath him, and that made it very difficult to focus on comical zombies. But he would try. Bellamy had started to pet him again, and, yes, he’d definitely do a lot of things for that.

 

*-*-*-*

 

The next day, when Murphy went to work, he actually strolled his way past the huge metal gate and into the employee entrance of the warehouse building. A couple of co-operative orgasms really did the mind wonders, he thought as he hummed to himself, pulling on gloves. He didn’t even get irritated when he forgot to do the earplugs first and had to take the gloves back off and put them on again.

“What are you so cheery about?”

Oh joy. Connor. His favorite co-worker, the one who (justifiably) hated him most. “Nothin’ much, just feeling really grateful that I’m not your car. How fast could that thing go if you weren’t in it, you think?”

Connor slammed him back against the wall. “Seriously? Fat jokes?”

It really was dangerous for Murphy to be happy. His filter, already quite threadbare, got even weaker when he was happy. “Never said I was original. Your dad did, though. Last night he said I was--”

 _Smack_. Murphy just couldn’t help himself. He smiled once he rebounded from the slap. That was the other thing about him being happy. It kind of put him in a fighting mood.

“Did you just make a fag joke about my dad? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Hm…” he glanced down, assessing the man’s position. “How much time you got?” The fool was just holding him by one shoulder, the rest of his body tense and exposed. Murphy gave him a quick jab to the stomach, not enough to actually do any damage, just enough to get him to loosen his grip.

“You bitch,” he growled. Before Murphy could get out of the way, he punched him squarely in the left eye. “You know you’ll get a write-up for pulling this shit.”

He winced at the pain, but he smiled, too. That would do. “Yeah, maybe. But I’m the one who’s gonna have a black eye while you look spotless. Plus, clock’s about to strike. Aren’t you on your last late warning?”

Connor’s jaw worked angrily, his stubbled cheek rippling like dough caught in a mixer. “Fuck you, man,” he spat as he turned to the door.

Murphy considered taunting him more, but the part of his brain that occasionally travelled on the rational side told him to shut up, that two hits were quite sufficient and that it would be colossally stupid to lose his job over nothing. So he cracked his neck, teetered to his feet, and walked out the door to the lines where the relentless groaning of machinery would drown out his thoughts even through the rubber bookends in his ears.

Oh yeah. This was a good day.

 

*-*-*-*

 

It was really dangerous for John Murphy to be happy, because being happy made him do stupid things. Like flip off Connor in the parking lot _after_ work. When he had walked there. And their shift ended just as it was getting dark.

But really, Murphy wouldn't have minded the extra bruise on his jaw and the ones forming on his ribs if he hadn't agreed to have Clarke over to his shithole that night. He was sure she would go into mother hen mode, and he didn’t particularly want that. In general, he healed quickly. But if he canceled, she'd be nosy about that, too, and maybe he could actually use the company. John Murphy being happy also typically resulted in a fairly sharp crash.

So he didn’t text Clarke. He made his slightly hindered way back to his tiny apartment, took a quick shower, and tried to make the place as presentable as possible. Murphy didn’t have a lot, but somehow he was messy enough to make it look like he did. But he’d made sure Clarke knew what she was getting herself into; He’d informed her that the only entertainment he could offer was Mario Kart on his battered old N64 on an even more battered tank of a tube TV he’d gotten at a thrift store shortly after rejoining society, and she had still said she wanted to see his place.

The knock at his door came just as he felt he’d put in an acceptable level of effort. He unlocked, unbolted, and removed the chain from the door with a smile. “Hey, princess. Welcome to my home shit home.”

“Hey M—oh my god, what happened to your face?”

He laughed. “Nothing. It always looks like this. Now, do come in, it’s cold outside and my space heater is pretty wimpy.”

She stepped over the threshold and moved aside so that Murphy could re-lock the door, but her expression remained concerned. “You have huge bruises on your face.”

“Oh, you mean _that_. I just had a disagreement with a wall at work.”

“Really? A wall, murphy? Were there stairs, too?”

“No, just the wall this time. The wall’s name is Connor.”

She placed her hands gently on his shoulders and turned him toward her. “Let me see.”

Murphy blew his bangs out of his eyes. “It’s fine, _mom_.”

Clarke had very soft hands. He was sure she’d make an excellent doctor someday, especially if she was able to show such care for someone gruff like him. It seemed she was about to pronounce him sufficiently healthy, but she looked down at his forearm and gasped. “Oh my god, you’re bleeding!”

“Huh?” Murphy knew he _had_ been bleeding—the disagreement involved Connor swiping him with his knife once and also some friendly contact with a gravel road—but he washed the cut in the shower. It hadn’t looked that serious, but she was actually right—the sleeve of his light grey shirt was soaked a dark red. “Oh. Shit. I didn’t notice it was that bad.”

Clarke pulled her keys from her pocket. “I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“No insurance. Besides, it’s fine.” He pulled back his sleeve to get a look. Admittedly, it wasn’t pretty, but the blood was dry on top, so there was that.

“ _No_ , it is _not_ fine, you definitely need stitches.”

Stitches? That seemed excessive. “Well, if you _must_ , go get your med kit, Baby Doc.”

“I'm _pre_ -med, Murphy, as in no hands-on medical training outside of working with my mom, I don't have a med kit, and people don’t just carry those around anyway!”

“Chill, Clarke. Use my sewing shit, then. It's around here somewhere. And I’ve got bandages in the medicine cabinet, just didn’t think I’d need one.”

Clarke flew into action. He’d be sure to tell her once this was over that she might want to work on keeping her cool during a crisis. Although, he supposed she was doing okay, moving with purpose, searching through the clutter to find the sewing supplies, then darting to the bathroom. She emerged a few moments later with the box of gauze and medical tape Murphy kept (losing fights was a bit of a habit) and asked “H202 and Alcohol?”

He couldn’t help himself, replying with a grin, “Clarke, you’re supposed to celebrate the surgery _after_ you stitch them up.”

“Murphy, I swear to god.”

“Should be under the sink. Was it not?”

She rushed back to the bathroom again to grab it, and then came back out to pull him into the tiny room with her. “You’re insane, you know that?” Her touch remained gentle as she guided his arm under the faucet. The water stung running over his skin, but not as much as the soap she used to clean the outside of the wound. It appeared he’d gotten the gravel out of it for the most part, and Clarke was careful to remove the few bits left over.

“I feel like I’ve been pretty clear about my flaws.”

“I’m serious, Murphy. This is going to need like six or seven stitches. And you’ve probably lost a good amount of blood.”

“Been a while since I donated, so it evens out.”

“For fuck’s sake, Murphy.” She kicked his ankle lightly. Luckily for him, his ankles weren’t bruised this time. “This is going to hurt, you know. Doctors don’t use straight household needles and cotton thread.” After washing his arm clean, the fresh burn of hydrogen peroxide came next, and a sharp hiss escaped his lips. “See, that? That’s nothing. I’m about to jab a needle through your skin multiple times, and I’ll have to pull on it, too. I can still take you to the hospital.”

He took a deep breath. “Still not an option, but it’s nothing I haven’t done before. I would have done it myself if I’d noticed earlier. Besides,” he smiled as widely as he could. “You have magic little pre-med hands, and I have total faith in you. Just tell me before you stick me so I can grit my teeth, okay?”

Clarke’s face was pale, but she nodded. Murphy tried not to be annoyed at the amount of alcohol she poured over the needle to sterilize it. “Okay, ready?”

“Have at it.”

He’d been a little worried he was going to have to take over (which would have been a pain in the ass using his non-dominant hand), but Clarke’s movements were steady. She made seven small, precise stitches, and it hurt like fucking hell. It was a struggle to keep the affected arm relaxed. The nails of his left hand were digging into his palm hard, and he felt like his legs might cramp. “Almost there,” she said softly as she knotted the end. After she finished, she spread a thin layer of antibiotic ointment on his skin and taped some clean gauze over the wound.

Murphy let out the breath he’d been holding and sat down heavily on the toilet seat. “Thanks, Doc. You did great.”

Clarke leaned back against the wall. “I’ve done stitches before, but never in an apartment bathroom with a regular sewing kit. By the way, do you actually sew, or do you just have this for first aid? Because if it’s for first aid, we need to get you some better supplies.”

“My supplies are fine. And yes, I do sew. I’m a very crafty man.” Murphy specifically sewed only when he needed to patch a piece of clothing or was especially bored. He wanted to be fond of it since his mother taught him before things went to shit, but after his father died, she became critical of everything. He imagined after every stitch that her ghost was frowning and telling him to rip it out and do it over. Still, thread wasn’t too expensive and it gave him something to do with his hands.

Clarke leaned forward to look at the rest of his body. “Do you have other cuts?”

“Don’t think so. And I’m not undressing for you.”

“Jesus, Murphy, how are you so casual about this?”

He shrugged. “It really isn’t a big deal.”

“Is this part of punishing yourself?”

Murphy didn’t feel quite so cheerful anymore. Was that what he was doing? Picking fights to make himself suffer? No. He didn’t entertain thoughts like that until at least 2 in the morning. Besides, he got some punches in, too. “I’ve just got one of those faces. You know, ones that make people want to hit you.”

She was still frowning at him. “What happened today?”

“Honestly, I picked a fight with the guy for no reason.”

Her eyes narrowed. “No reason at all?”

Well, none he wanted to discuss. “Nope. But we’ve been dooming and glooming way too long, here. I promised you Mario Kart.”

Bless the young doctor-to-be, she decided to let it go. “I guess you did. But I’m coming to check on you again tomorrow.”

“Do you know I actually thought about canceling on you because I knew you’d go mother hen?” He got up on mostly steady feet and headed for the couch in his living room (well, his one room; it was a studio with a half-ass wall partition sectioning off the alcove where he hid his mattress).

“I’m glad you didn’t. You could have bled to death.”

He grabbed two controllers and patted the couch next to him. “You’re so dramatic. I would have been fine. And I call Yoshi.”

“Of course you do,” she said with an eyeroll. “I’ll be Peach in your honor.”

“My hero,” he muttered, a wide smile splitting his cheeks. He’d been smiling a lot lately. And wasn’t that a scary thought.

 

*-*-*-*

 

He waited a couple of days, just long enough so that his eye didn’t look quite so terrible, before going to see Bellamy again. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t tell him if he asked. He just didn’t want him to freak out, which was why he also wore a long-sleeved shirt. That didn’t have to come off even if they got frisky.

And Murphy had suggested going straight to his apartment in part for that reason.

“You know, Murphy,” Bellamy started slowly after he’d been shoved onto the couch, the younger man kissing down the side of his neck. “I really would like to get to know you. By talking.”

He gave the tiniest of laughs and bit his collarbone. “I’m really not very interesting. And I talk better with my hands.” He emphasized that point by slipping one underneath his shirt.

Bellamy hummed and arched into it. “I definitely get that. But I want to know more about you.”

Adorable. He kissed him on the nose. “Okay, Pollyanna. Ask me questions, then.” Really, Murphy would answer them, but he didn’t see the harm in continuing his fun. So he grabbed Bellamy’s hips and pressed them into his own.

“Where did you—ah—grow up?”

“Gotham. Next.” He let more of his weight bear down over Bellamy and maneuvered one hand under him to squeeze his backside.

“Murphy, damn it, seriously.”

“Fine, killjoy. Arkham Asylum.” Bellamy pinched his arm (his left one, thank god). “Okay, okay, that was actually close though, I grew up in Arkadia. It’s like two hours from here.”

“Hm… okay. What brought you here?”

Murphy licked the shell of his ear. “Arkadia sucked ass.”

“Um…” he started unbuckling Bellamy’s belt. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Nope.” And then he had his hand around him, and apparently that was the breaking point, because Bellamy flipped them over and pinned Murphy’s hands above his head by the wrists. He was smiling and breathing a little heavily.

“Murphy, what do I have to do to get you to actually talk to me?”

His hands might be incapacitated, but the rest of him wasn’t. He canted his hips upward persistently. “Banging me on your couch would be a start. I’m a lot chattier after sex.”

“I can do that.” He grinned. “How about this: you tell me a fantasy you have, I’ll act it out with you, and then you have to have a meaningful, honest conversation about yourself with me.”

Murphy considered. “How kinky are you?”

“Um.” Bellamy blinked. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Do you like holding me down?” he gestured to his wrists with his chin.

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Ever choked someone before?”

He frowned. “Choking isn't safe.”

Murphy smirked. “Most fun things aren't. Here’s the fantasy: you’ve gotten tired of my shit—which is kind of what’s happening now—so you push me over, hold me down, choke me a little, and fuck me. I’m sick, I know.”

“You’re not sick, Murphy. I’m good with all of it except the choking. It just isn’t safe.”

He pouted. “No deal.”

“Come on, Murph. What about a different one?”

“Uh-uh. It has to be something really good if I have to be all vulnerable with you and shit.”

Bellamy dropped his head onto his chest in frustration. “Well… what if I hold a hand around your throat without squeezing? No impairing breathing whatsoever, but would just touching you like that work?”

Murphy rolled his hips again. “I can work with that.”

He lifted his head and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. “No cheating.”

“Fine, fine, I promise. Now go on, show me how annoyed you are.” He saw Bellamy hesitating. “What gets you riled up? Hm… history is stupid! Uh, your sweaters are lame, the Bronco’s suck, Clarke’s shit at drawing!”

Bellamy was laughing until the last one. “Shut up, Murphy,” he mumbled sternly. “She’s self-conscious, you know.”

“Make me,” he cooed, smiling widely.

So Bellamy tightened his hold on his wrists and pressed his mouth against Murphy’s hard. He wriggled his hands and flexed his muscles just to see how committed Bellamy was, and he was thoroughly satisfied when his grip turned bruising. He kissed with teeth and tongue, and the growl that vibrated out from Bellamy’s chest like a bassline had his toes curling. Bellamy moved down to suck and bite at his neck, but Murphy had to speak up when one of his hands started to lift his shirt.

“Sorry, shirt on, please. Everything else is fair game.”

Bellamy quirked an eyebrow, but just nodded. “Do you want my clothes to stay on?”

“Fuck no.” He grinned, all teeth and aggressive canines. “Strip for me, handsome.”

God help him, Bellamy actually did. He did a dorky little half-assed lap dance while he slowly pulled his fluffy sweater and plain t-shirt over his head. Murphy couldn’t help reaching out to run his hands over the man’s chest, but he slapped them away. “No touching.” He gave up the strip show after he unbuckled his belt, standing to very unceremoniously step out of his pants and boxers. And then Murphy groaned as he roughly tugged his own baggy grey sweatpants off.

“Condoms and lube in the left pocket,” he murmured.

Bellamy gaped at him. “Seriously? Did you come over _just_ to have sex with me?”

“What? No! Sorry, I’m a dick.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Of course I want to, but I still would have been happy if you didn’t. I just wanted to be ready in case, you know? Do you… not want to?” He hadn’t thought about how this would look. It wouldn’t be the first time his impulsivity and sex drive cost him a chance at a relationship.

“No, I very much want to.” Bellamy guided his hand to his obvious arousal. “Sorry, I’m insecure, I guess.”

Murphy wrapped his hand around him and stroked gently. “I’m an ass, seriously. I’m not just here for sex.” He stilled. “And I realize I’m not doing a good job of showing that.”

Bellamy kissed him on the nose. “It’s okay.”

He smirked in response. “Then cowboy up and make it hard for me to walk tomorrow.”

Bellamy grabbed the bottle and foil wrappers and climbed back on top of him. He hiked both of Murphy’s legs up over his shoulders and bent him almost in half. “Like this?”

“Yeah,” he said breathlessly.

He heard the plastic cap snap open and felt slick fingers against him a moment later. His free hand reached up to form a fist around Murphy’s cock, and he pumped him lightly while he slipped one finger inside. It was wonderful, but too slow.

“Come on. Fast, rough. I want you.”

Bellamy kissed one of his knees. “You sure?”

“ _Yes_.” He bucked his hips to make his point.

The man let out a quiet hum at the feeling and finally picked up the pace. Not two minutes later, he had three fingers driving into him, and Murphy gritted his teeth around a moan. “Condom,” he ground out.

“You’re very bossy for someone who wanted to be held down.”

“And you’re very gentle for someone who agreed to it.”

“Fine,” he muttered, rolling the condom on. “How’s this?” He pushed his way into Murphy’s ass in one smooth thrust. Then he reached up to press his shoulders into the couch cushions.

“Fucking fan _tastic_ ,” he keened. It was a dull pain that set his veins on fire.

The sweat beading on Bellamy’s forehead dripped off of his dark curls onto Murphy’s shirt. He dug his fingers into the fabric of the couch as the man pressing him down thrust into him hard and fast. “Oh my fucking god, _Bellamy_ ,” he moaned without a shred of decency. “Choke me, choke me.”

One of Bellamy’s large hands curled around his throat, barely resting on his skin as promised, and he wished so badly that he would cut off his air, make him completely at his mercy, but it was enough. He threw his head back when he came, dirtying the shirt he kind of thought he shouldn’t have bothered washing.

“God, Murphy, you’re gorgeous,” he gasped, bearing down harder and thrusting a few more times before stilling against his hips. He leaned down and pressed kiss after kiss onto Murphy’s neck, licking away sweat and absently rubbing one hand up and down his thigh.

“Not so bad yourself,” Murphy muttered playfully.

Bellamy pulled out, tied off the condom, and all but collapsed over him on the couch. “Do you really think my sweaters are lame?”

“Pfft, no,” Murphy laughed. “I love your sweaters. I also don’t have any particular malice toward history. Oh, and Clarke’s art is fine.”

Bellamy nosed at his ear affectionately. “And you know, I never actually spent any time in Australia, so I don’t care about the Broncos.”

“Guess I’ll have to find other ways to get your goat.”

“I’m probably crushing you.” He crawled off the couch and took Murphy’s hands to help him up. “Ready for a deep conversation?”

“No. But I promised. I do insist I have pants for this, though.” Bellamy, the perfect gentleman, held them out to him and then led him to his bedroom, not bothering to redress himself.

After they settled under the covers, Murphy took a deep breath. “So what secrets do you want me to spill?”

Bellamy trailed his fingertips delicately over Murphy’s bruised cheekbone. “Let’s start with this.”

“Damn. Here I was hoping you wouldn’t say anything. It’s nothing, I just picked a fight at work. Clarke already lectured me about it. Next question.”

“Murphy,” he kissed him on his uninjured cheek. “This is a conversation, not an interrogation.”

He sighed. “Sorry. I’m not good at this.”

“It’s okay. Why don’t you ask me something?”

He frowned. There was plenty he wanted to know, but he didn’t know where to start. He decided to just throw one of Bellamy’s questions back at him. “Got any siblings?”

“One sister, Octavia.”

“Jesus, the names in your family. What’re your parents, Poseidon and Persephone?”

Bellamy chuckled. “Interesting pair you chose there. No, my mother’s name was Aurora, and I don’t know my dad’s.”

“So what’s the story there?”

He hesitated. “That one’s a little too heavy right now. Gotta pass on it this time. Which, by the way, is totally fine for you to do, too. You just can’t pass on the conversation altogether.”

“Yeah, yeah, can’t wish for more wishes. Anyway… I’m supposed to, like, volunteer information, too, right?”

Bellamy smiled. “Generally that’s the approach.”

“Let’s see… my favorite color is black.” Baby steps.

He flicked his shoulder. “To match your bitter heart?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“Mine’s green.”

“Okay.”

Bellamy laughed. “You’re adorable, you know that?”

“Not how most people describe me.”

“So what’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen at work?”

Murphy closed his eyes and thought for a moment. Images flashed through his mind before he settled on one. “Probably the animal heads.”

“Animal heads?”

“Yeah. We don’t see them often, but occasionally someone tosses an animal carcass into the recycling pile instead of the waste. So, most of the time, I work on the lines where shit gets separated out, and that’s where I’ve seen them. There I am picking through plastic bottles and wrappers and cans and whatever, and then, bam, deer head.”

“Wow.” Bellamy just blinked in response.

Murphy chuckled against his shoulder. “Details, or next question?”

“Ew. Let’s go with next question. Aside from Arkadia sucking, what made you decide to move here?”

He bit his lip. “Well, I didn’t so much decide as get bused to the prison here after I outgrew juvie. Clarke tell you I got out this past spring?”

He nodded. “Didn’t say that’s why you moved here, though.”

“She didn’t know. Wanna know what I was in for?”

“If you don’t mind sharing.”

“Okay, it was like this,” he started in the most dramatic voice he could muster. “I was 18, just graduated high school, and I was supposed to keep my nose clean, but I just snapped. Torched the entire town.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes. “No you didn’t.”

“No, really. If you look it up on google earth, it’s just a scorched black pit on the map.”

He shoved his shoulder. “You can pass if you want.”

“Fine, fine. I didn’t burn the whole town. Just one house.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, for real this time.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“The guy who lived there got my father killed. He didn’t die in the fire, so I'm not really a murderer yet. Details on that are a hard pass.”

Bellamy kissed him again. Had he ever been kissed so many times? “Okay. What’s your favorite folktale?”

They didn’t talk about anything serious after that. Only mundane things or abstracts or hobbies. And at the end of it, Murphy was surprised by how not icky he felt in spite of all the stupid, gooey pillow talk. And when he fell asleep in Bellamy’s bed, his rest was dreamless and as comforting as Bellamy’s strong arm draped over his waist.  

 

*-*-*-*

 

The next morning, after Murphy made his failed attempt at a sneaky retreat (his bedfellow reached out to ruffle his hair and mumbled a request to text him later), he and Bellamy officially became a Thing. They declared it over said text messages like teenagers, and Bellamy sent him fucking _heart_ _emojis_ , and the whole thing scared the shit out of him. So his next text went to Clarke, asking for a drinking night.

That’s how he found himself later that week snuggled close to Bellamy on the floor of Clarke’s surprisingly modest apartment, a jack and coke in one hand and his… _boyfriend_ ’s fingers clasped in the other.

“Okay, have you ever played this before, Murphy?” Clarke asked, walking over to join them with her own drink, sticky notes, and a marker.

“You have to tell me what the game is first.”

Bellamy squeezed his hand. Jesus. “We write a word on a sticky note—it can be a celebrity, cartoon character, animal, whatever, as long as the person would be able to guess it—slap them on our foreheads, and take turns asking questions to figure it out.”

“Nope, can’t say I’ve ever done that.”

Clarke beamed. “It’s super fucking fun.”

“Are you already drunk?”

“No!” She took a swig of her beer. “But I’m working on it! Okay, I have one for Murphy, you guys can fight over me.” She took one sticky note, wrote something, and smacked it onto Murphy’s forehead with an unnecessary amount of force.

“I’m not fighting for you if you whack me in the face.” He grabbed a sticky note and scribbled a word on it. Murphy brushed Bellamy’s hair aside and gently pressed it to his forehead.

Bellamy wrote one for Clarke, and she clapped excitedly. “Okay, okay, I’ll go first. Am I a person?”

Murphy choked on his drink when he read the word. “Ha, no.”

“Am I living creature?”

“Nope.”

“Um… Do I make noise?”

Murphy laughed. “Yes, you’re noisy as fuck.”

She glared at him. “What’s the main thing I do?”

“Doesn’t it have to be yes or no questions? We can’t answer that without giving it away.”

Bellamy waved his hand. “We just have to be vague. You move stuff.”

“Not alive, loud, move things…” she muttered. “Am I a vehicle?”

“Yep.”

“Car?”

“No.”

“Truck?”

“No.”

“Van?”

“No.”

“Camaro?”

“Oh my god, Clarke,” Murphy groaned. “We already said you’re not a car. And if you start listing models, I’ll kill you.”

She punched his shoulder. “ _Fine_ , am I a land vehicle, air, or water?”

“Air.”

“Plane?”

They shook their heads.

“Blimp? Oh, helicopter!”

“There ya go.” Murphy peeled the sticky note off of her forehead. “You’re a helicopter, hovering over people’s personal lives.”

“Oh, shut up. I got you laid.”

“Clarke!” Bellamy’s face turned red.

He gave his boyfriend a lopsided smile. “Three times now. Wanna go christen Clarke’s bathroom?”

She paled at the thought. “I swear to god, Murphy, I will destroy you. Your turn, _go_.”

He tapped his chin. “Am I a person?”

“A fictional one,” Bellamy offered.

Clarke bonked him with her now empty beer bottle. “Don’t make it too easy.” She went to get another beer.

“Am I in a book?”

“You’re in coloring books.”

“ _Bellamy_ ,” Clarke whined from the kitchen.

“Okay, cartoon character. Who’s my best friend?”

Bellamy paused, thinking. “Someone pink.”

“What’s my catchphrase?”

Clarke plopped down on the carpet again. “Murphy, that makes it too easy.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I ask better questions than you do.”

“I’m ready,” Bellamy supplied.

Murphy leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Right now? Oh, you naughty man.”

His boyfriend did not appear to be a fan of PDA. “ _No_ , jackass, that’s your catchphrase.”

“Oh. Spongebob.”

Clarke had brought the whiskey and coke with her, and she filled up the two men’s cups. “Your go, Bell.”

“Okay. Am I a person?”

Murphy snickered. “Nope.”

“Am I alive?”

“Only in a Disney movie. But don’t get stuck on that, it’s an old one.”

He frowned. “Um… what color am I?”

“Usually silver.”

“What’s the main thing I do?”

Murphy licked his lips. “You make things hot.”

“Oh my god,” Clarke groaned.

“Am I a water heater?”

“Nope, smaller.”

“Space heater?”

“Nope.”

He paused to take a sip of his drink and tilt his head. “Would you find me in a house?”

“Yep.”

“What room would I be in?”

“The kitchen.”

“A refrigerator?”

Murphy laughed. “Getting cold. You make things _hot_ , Bellamy. Hot for hungry guys like me.”

“You’re disgusting,” Clarke grumbled.

“Microwave?”

“Smaller.”

“Toaster?”

“Ding ding ding!” Murphy threw his arms around him and kissed him. “You’re my sexy little toaster!”

“Murphy, you are _done_ , I’m picking his word this time.”

It was three rounds and a fair amount of alcohol later that Murphy realized his face hurt. His face hurt from _smiling_. What had happened to his life in the last couple of weeks?

He wasn’t going anywhere, not the way everyone else went places, did productive things with their lives. All he cared about was surviving, making his next paycheck, indulging in bad habits. But when he watched the way Bellamy’s eyes crinkled at the corners, he thought maybe his priorities could change. This was the first time he’d downed alcohol without thinking about his mother’s sunken eyes (thanks brain, days without incident now back to zero), skulking in smoky bars looking for a stranger to hate himself with.

Two weeks? Three days of in-a-relationship status? That was nothing. It wasn’t even a blip on the unforgiving timeline of his life, and he felt sure it was all going to crash in no time.

But Murphy kept laughing. He kept holding his dreamy boyfriend’s hand and volleying insults at Baby Doc, who was quickly becoming his best friend. It would end. Of course it would. But he might as well enjoy it as long as he could before he gritted his teeth and lit the match.

 

*-*-*-*

 

Clarke and Murphy were at Jim’s again, because he insisted she meet him there occasionally for cultural education.

“I bet you’re friends with all the staff, right?”

Murphy let out a laugh that bordered on too loud. “Ha, no.” That was something a person like Clarke would do. Someone like Clarke would get to know them and ask about their kids and smile every day. Outside his interactions with her and Bellamy, someone like Murphy nodded at best. Sneered most of the time.

She flipped a page in her tome of a textbook. “Don’t you think it’s kind of fate that we met?”

“Fate is bullshit.”

“But think about it. You only come here a few times a week. What are the odds that my friend would have told me to go here on a day and time when you’d be here?”

“Maybe they did it on purpose. Maybe they’d seen the bum who hangs out here and wanted to subject you to him.”

“Actually, I think Jasper really thought this was a good place. I think he just goes to the drive-through late at night, so maybe that explains it.”

Murphy kicked her under the table. “There you go, mystery solved. Now shut up so I can read.”

The blonde eyed him suspiciously. “You know, you've been on the same page for a while. Something bothering you?”

“Nope.” He tensed and tried not to show it. “I'm just busy doing literary analysis at the same time.”

“Come on Murphy, what's up?”

“Nothing. Drop it.” And oh, fuck him and his shoes too, she'd figured it out. He'd been so relaxed he probably wasn't being careful to keep his lips from moving.

“You know, if you ever want—”

“Clarke, I do not need help. Never had trouble getting myself hooked on things, and Phonics will be just as easy as meth.”

“You haven't done meth.”

“How do you know? I've got a whole set up in my basement.”

“You don't have a basement.”

“Well, I _used_ to have a basement.”

“You're changing the subject.”

“And you're being nosy. Drop it.”

Sometimes (okay, always) Clarke was a good friend. She tapped his ankle with her stupid trendy boots and turned back to her textbook, eyes roaming across words Murphy thought he might never be able to read.

 

*-*-*-*

 

Sometimes Clarke was an absolute shit friend. “Oh my god, I'm gonna fucking kill her.”

“Murphy, it's okay. It doesn't make me think less of you.” They were curled together in Bellamy’s bed. The dickhead had waited until Murphy was completely blissed out to tell him that he’d enjoy reading together if he was up for it.

“It definitely does. Look at your face! Look at how your face is looking at my face!”

Bellamy smirked, and that made Murphy feel a tiny bit better. “I don't know what my face is doing right now, but I'm telling you I'm seriously not judging you.”

“Cool, great, peachy. So what are we doing? We're doing something, right?”

He pulled him close and kissed the top of his head. “We’re cuddling like the disgustingly sweet lovers we are. I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

Murphy grunted. “It’s fine. Maybe it would be cool for you to teach me or whatever.”

He kissed him behind the ear. “Only if you want.”

And, actually, Murphy did want. Struggling his way through on his own was exhausting, and he’d been working on the same book for months, ever since he bought it off the dusty shelf of a corner thrift store. If he was being honest, which was an activity he tried to avoid, the book was too hard for him. There were words he simply had to skip, but bringing himself down to something easier would feel too much like failure, so he plodded ahead like the ass he was.

“Hey,” Bellamy whispered against his neck. “You’re getting all broody. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Bell…” He still hadn’t asked, but Murphy felt the need to explain anyway. “I'm dyslexic, and the special ed class my school put me in was a joke. They gave us fucking coloring books up to 6th grade, and by that point I was a lost cause.”

His long fingers soothed their way through his hair. “Do you like having people read to you?”

“How would I know?”

Bellamy got the saddest damn look on his face, and it made Murphy think about punching Clarke even more. “Can I read to you?”

“How would that help?”

“You follow along while I read. And then maybe you can read to me if you want. I love being read to. My sister and I read to each other growing up.”

Murphy thought about that. He imagined Bellamy reading to the little sister he knew he adored. He imagined sitting in Bellamy’s lap, his arms wrapped around him holding a book in front of the two of them, chin resting on his head. He imagined all the stories he could hear if he didn’t have to wait for his brain to catch up, if Bellamy’s deep voice weaved them directly into his ears.

“Yeah. Know what, yeah. Read to me sometime, professor.”

 

*-*-*-*

 

It was one such night, two months later, the two of them slotted together on the couch, when Bellamy paused mid-sentence in the Iliad. “Murphy… move in with me.”

He sighed. It was about time the shoe dropped. “Bellamy, I would break all of your shit just by being here.”

“One, no, you wouldn't, and two, I don't care.”

“But what happens when you get tired of me?” He twisted out of his arms and sat up. “What happens when I meet your sister and she hates me? What happens when you're face to face with my unpredictable tantrums and my battle not to drink or smoke or brawl or—”

“Murphy,” he interrupted, cupping his stubbled cheek with one hand. “What happens is I'll be there. I—”

“Oh no. No, no, no. Don't you dare.” All the blood drained from his face.

“I love you, Murphy.”

He bit his lip. “Fuck. Listen, I… appreciate it and everything, but I need to go, okay?” His stomach clenched in knots of hissing snakes at the way Bellamy’s face fell, but he couldn't do this, he felt sick and the room was too hot and his teeth were rattling in his skull, and he just couldn't do this. “It's—” he cringed as he very narrowly avoided saying the stupid ‘it's not you it's me.’ “It’s not your fault, okay? I just… I need a minute.” Bellamy nodded so sadly. Murphy hated himself. “I'll text you, okay?”

Murphy slipped his jacket on as fast as he could and darted out the door.

 

*-*-*-*

 

“John Murphy, you little shit!” He jerked awake and fell off his mattress to the floor.

“Goddamn it…”

The banging on his door did not relent. “Jonathan Murphy, I did not set you up with my best friend so you could break his heart!”

The way she kept saying his stupid first name made his blood boil. “Well, I never asked you to set me up!” he yelled back.

The banging stopped. “Come on, Murphy, just let me in.” She kicked the door when he didn’t respond.

He got up and stumbled over to the entryway so he wouldn't have to shout as loudly. “Go away, princess, you're gonna piss off my neighbors.”

“I’m sorry for yelling.” He looked through the peephole to see her staring back at him. “I’m just worried, okay? Can I come in?”

Murphy sighed and unlocked, unbolted, and removed the chain from his door. The instant Clarke made it into the apartment, she constricted him into a tight hug. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Well, right now it’s kind of hard to breathe.”

She let him go. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Come wallow with me in my den of sadness if you must,” he said dramatically, trying to cut the tension, but Clarke wasn’t having it.

“What happened, Murphy? I thought you were so happy.”

“Don’t you know already? I figured you would have bugged our phones.”

“All Bellamy said was that he was scared he messed up and you were breaking up with him.”

Murphy sighed. “I didn’t say that.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I needed a minute. He asked me to move in with him.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Pfft, yeah, ‘oh.’ Look around,” he gestured with one hand. “This is what I am. A shitty apartment, piles of trash, and a dead-end job. Do you want Bellamy’s nice-ass grad student house to look like this?”

Clarke grabbed his hand. “So pick up after yourself. It doesn’t have to be like that. Is it about money?”

He ground his teeth. “ _Everything_ is about money. And I’m fine. I survive. But Bellamy is better than that. He’s better than _me_ , and he should be with someone nice like you.”

“Still gay, Murphy. And you’re just as good as anyone else.”

He clenched a fist. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I don’t _care_ what you’ve done, and neither does he. We care about who you are now, and you make him ridiculously happy, and it seems like he makes you happy, too.”

“Clarke, he said he loves me.”

She beamed. Who told her she could smile about that? “Of course he does. Don’t you love him, too?”

“I don’t know.” Yes, he did. But if he said he didn’t, it would be like keeping his head under the blanket, because the monster can’t see you if you can’t see it.

“Well…” she squeezed his hand. “Take your time. Think about it. But don’t shoot it down because you’re still punishing yourself. Give yourself a chance.”

But surely Murphy had been given enough chances. What made him special enough to deserve another?

Apparently he said that out loud. “It’s not about deserving, Murphy, it’s about earning. Earn it.”

 

*-*-*-*

  
It was a week before Murphy knocked on Bellamy’s door. They’d texted occasionally, as he’d promised, but hadn’t arranged to see each other. Murphy biked there at 9 o’clock in the evening before he could talk himself out of it again.

The relief on Bellamy’s face when he opened the door came in the form of a blinding smile. He pulled him inside by the wrist and then enveloped him in a crushing embrace. He kept saying his name, over and over, kissing him everywhere he could reach. Thank god Murphy didn’t intend to break up with him or this would be impossible.

“Bell,” he began slowly. “There's no way I could make enough to put a dent in the rent on this place. I have zero marketable skills.”

He kept kissing him. “I'm sure you have plenty of skills, but it's fine. I'll be paying the same amount whether you live with me or not.”

“I’m a walking trashcan.”

He smiled against his neck. “Thought your title was king?”

“It _is_ , for a reason, but the point is my pay isn’t great, and I don’t have a lot of prospects.”

“Well…” one hand threaded into his hair and the other slipped under his shirt. “I know you could do something else if you wanted to, but it seems like you kind of like working there. Do you?”

“No one goes to work because they like it.” He thought about Bellamy and his lecture hall full of kids with bright futures. “Well, most people don't. But yeah, I kinda do. I like knowing that if me and my people went on strike it could fuck over the entire city.”

Bellamy laughed at that. “It’s whatever you want. If you want to do something else, go to school, or keep being Trash King, I’ll love you just as much.”

Murphy pushed him away and grabbed him by the shoulders, leveling their eyes. “Are you serious?”

“As a debt collector in rigor mortis.”

“You really love me?”

“I really love you.”

Murphy couldn’t look at his eyes anymore. They were so big and earnest and… “I snore.”

“I know. We’ve kind of slept together many, many times.”

“I don’t sort my laundry.”

“Murphy, oh my god, stop making excuses.” He lifted his chin and forced him to look at him again. “Would you like to move in with me? Yea or nay?”

He took a deep breath. He thought about what it might be like to let go of the ache in his jaw, to put away his sabotage kit, to wake up to the rough morning voice of his lover instead of the crackle of his shitty prison radio. He could always go back, right? He would always survive. If he fell on his face again, it didn’t matter. So maybe he’d give it a go. Maybe he’d try to earn it.

“Murphy?”

“I’ll…” he kissed him softly. “I’ll grab my stuff later.”

And then his feet left the ground as Bellamy literally _carried_ him to his bed. True to form, one of his feet knocked over a lamp on the way, but his hero didn’t care, he strolled on ahead, and when he threw Murphy onto the mattress, the two of them tumbled down together thick as thieves.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Clarke WAS exaggerating in the first aid scene, but seriously, don’t do that at home.
> 
> I’m sure arson gets you a much longer sentence than what Murphy had, but I was hoping you’d go with it.
> 
> For those who read the smut, as far as I know, Bellamy is right: breath play isn't safe. You can try to be careful about how tight you squeeze and how long etc., but really, you don't want to mess around with oxygen deprivation, so it's much safer to do things that evoke the idea of it instead. Even just holding someone’s neck while in the position these two were in is dangerous (he could have fallen forward and hurt him), so stick to kisses or touches or collars. But if you do decide to engage in breath play irl, please be as safe as you can!
> 
> Apologies for all inaccuracies and likely instances of OOC. D:
> 
> Oh, and the Greek figures Murphy mentioned were completely random. There's no clever meaning there at all.
> 
> Thanks again for reading. <3


End file.
